The panopticism in oliver twist

1. THE PANOPTICISM AND :
THE WORKHOUSE OF
OLIVER TWIST
TAMSA PANDYA
ROLL NO: 28
EMAIL ID: TAMSAPANDYA25@GMAIL.COM
PAPER NAME: THE VICTORIAN LITERATURE
SUBMITTED: S.B.GARDI DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH , MKBU

2. THE PANOPTICISM AND : THE
WORKHOUSE OF OLIVER TWIST

3. THEORY OF SURVEILLANCE: THE
PANOPTICON
 THE PANOPTICON was proposed as model prison by J.EREMY
BENTHAM (1748-1832).
 A type of prison where the inspector constantly moniters labours,
capitalism, Marxism in the 18th century saw the emergence of such
prison and workhouse for children.
 Higginbotham, the first dictionary entry for the word workhouse dates from
1652, being described as “The said house to bee converted for a
workhouse for the poor of this cittye and also a house of correction for
the vagrant and disorderly people within this cittye”
(http://www.workhouses.org.uk/).

4. What is Panopticon/cism?
PAN=ALL
OPTIC=EYE/VI
SION
Panopticon

5. FOCAUIT’S PANOPTICISM
 Michel Foucault's concept of "Panopticism"
(Described in his book "Discipline and Punish:
The Birth of the Prison" (1975)) is based on
Jeremy Bentham's idea of the "Panopticon".
Bentham, a very utilitarian philosopher, offered
the Panopticon as a highly efficient model for a
prison.
 Foucault took this idea by Bentham as the
paradigm for modern system of discipline. For
Foucault the ideas behind the Panopticon and
the way they are manifested are actually of
process Western society went through,
becoming a "disciplinary society". For Foucault
Panopticism is a theory of how power works

6. COUN..
 In Panopticism Foucault attacks the identification of power with the state
and the law, and he offers a much more distributed notion of power as
something which permeates all aspects of life, including the most intimate.
In addition, power for Foucault is not oppressive, but rather productive: it
does not stop you from doing things as much as it causes you to do
things. One thing that power and discipline produce for example is the
individual which is a subject with a sense of choice and independence
which is becoming ever more controlled by power.

7. COUN….“ THE
CONDIFI
D TO
PUNISH
TURNS
IN TO A
DISCIPLI
NARY
POWER
TO…..
OBSERVER
INDEPENDENT
REVOLT

8. OLIVER TWIST AND
THE WORKHOUSE
The hardships of the Victorian
workhouse led Oliver Twist utter
the famous phrase ‘Please Sir, I
want some more’. Here Ruth
Richardson explores Dickens’s own
experiences of poverty and the
social and political context in which
he was writing.

9. THE NEW POOR
LAW.
The Poor Law (Amendment) Act of 1834,
otherwise known as the 'New' Poor Law,
established the workhouse system. Instead
of providing a refuge for the elderly, sick
poor, children and instead of providing food
or clothing in exchange for work in times of
high unemployment, workhouses were to
become a sort of prison system.

10. THE WORKHOUS BOY
 The workhouse system was hated, and people
did everything they could to avoid becoming
subject to it. Life in the early 1800s was
miserable for those born into poverty.. The Poor
Laws of 1834 centralized the existing workhouse
system both to cut costs and discourage
perceived laziness. They resulted in the
infamous workhouses of the early Victorian
period: bleak places of forced labor and
starvation rations, and a frequent subject for
popular music and literature – notably Oliver
Twist by Charles Dickens (1812–1870), first
published fully in 1838.

11. SO WHAT….
Here we learn how such children and labourers
were disturbed by the deadly paradox of
panopticism, the new dimension of FOCAUIT’s
works are mainly worked to change the whole
situation. Prohibition prevailing in the
eighteenth century is considered a black spot
in history today

13.  Works Cited
 Blogger. 21 November 2017. 25 February 2020.
<http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2017/11/foucaults-panopticism-explained-
with.html>.
 Foucault, Michel. "Discipline and Punish The Birth of Prison." (n.d.): 36. pdf. 25
February 2020.
<http://static1.squarespace.com/static/567014ec0ab377e17adc4887/t/56b8b91a5
55986293525957f/1454946588942/disciplineandpunishEDIT.pdf>.
 Nicar, Amy. Prezi. 26 March 2014. 25 February 2020.
<https://prezi.com/8j9v_hbbeifs/the-panopticon/>.
 Ruth, Richardson. British Library. 15 May 2014. 25 February 2020.
<https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/oliver-twist-and-the-
workhouse>.
 The Workhouse The Story of an institution. n.d. 25 February 2020.
<http://www.workhouses.org.uk/>.